Continental Investment Partners

Carlo Sgarbi is Managing Partner and the operational lead for CIP. He co-founded the firm in 2013 with Marco Fumagalli after the pair managed investments together inside a Swiss family office. Marcello Nesta, an Investment Manager with the firm since 2017, is actively involved across CIP’s portfolio, serving on investee company boards and overseeing financial and administrative operations (per the firm’s website).

Continental Investment Partners is the investment arm of Jupiter Management, the family office of Philip J. Purcell, former chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley. Purcell is a founder of CIP, and his sons Paul and Boo Purcell currently serve as Head of Growth Capital and Head of Real Estate Investments, embedding the family directly in deal execution.

CIP structures its investments on a deal-by-deal basis, which typically enables participation from external co-investors alongside the Purcell family capital. The firm’s own materials state that its independent-sponsor model offers investors greater transparency and a shorter investment horizon compared to a traditional blind-pool fund, suggesting third-party capital is sought selectively for specific transactions.

CIP’s website lists four exclusions: start-ups, bonds or debt instruments, fund-of-fund or holding-company positions, and commodities. This rules out early-stage venture capital, fixed-income mandates, and any passive, multi-manager exposure. The firm instead concentrates on buyouts, growth equity, real estate developments, and selective public-equity trades.

CIP pursues residential, commercial, and industrial projects with a development horizon of two to three years. Named assets include Vickers Apartments in Roswell, Georgia, EngineWorks in Bozeman, Montana, Trailside Townhomes in Draper, Utah, and an Amazon Distribution Center in Marriott-Slaterville, Utah — indicating a bias toward secondary US markets across Sunbelt and Mountain regions.

Marco Fumagalli served as Managing Partner of CIP from its founding in 2013 until 2016, when he stepped back from an operational role. He no longer holds an executive position at CIP but retains links through board seats, including at SourceBio International, the venture capital fund P101 SGR, and the strategic committee of FinInt SGR. He also maintains membership in Italian Angels for Biotech and Italian Angels for Growth.